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On a Sunday in October last year, Dave and Jackie Osmond arrived at the care home near Coventry, where Jackie’s mother Lynn was living, to take her on her final journey.

Suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease and living in constant pain following a series of surgical procedures, Lynn, who was 76, had long since made up her mind that she wished to die on her own terms, peacefully and as she put it, with dignity .

‘It was what she wanted,’ Jackie said. ‘And because it was what she wanted, we wanted to help her.’

Under the Suicide Act, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, any action that helps another person to end his or her life is illegal, including arranging travel to assisted-dying...